We are very excited to present this week’s “3 Questions” with author and Dartmouth lecturer Saul Lelchuk. Mr. Lelchuk grew up in the Upper Valley, earned a Masters degree from Dartmouth College and a Bachelors degree from Amherst College. He currently lives in Berkeley, California.

Mr. Lelchuk will appear at 7 pm on Wednesday, April 10 at the Norwich Bookstore to discuss his debut novel Save Me From Dangerous Men. A debut novel that Kirkus, in a starred review, called “A timely and totally badass debut.” In another starred review, Publishers Weekly said, “This intelligent, action-packed thriller will resonate with readers as it touches on such themes as domestic violence, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the intrusive potential of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence…But the book’s real appeal stems from its powerful, distinctive protagonist.” We would like to note that many reviews compare his protagonist, Nikki Griffin, to Lisbeth Salander and Jack Reacher. We are pretty certain this ensures there will be a second book; but, you can ask him in person if you are lucky enough to attend this event.

1.What three books have helped shape you into the writer you are today, and why?

I’ll never forget the first time I read WhiteFang, by Jack London. Not just the pure adventure of it, the delightfully exotic setting of the Yukon Territory and Klondike Gold Rush, how it opened a door to a fascinating historical time and place that I had never encountered. It was also one of the first times I realized how powerful a book, a story, could really be: I didn’t want to do anything until I had finished it. I didn’t do anything, in fact, until I had. There’s a reason why London was the single most popular American writer of his time, after all, and this book showed me, plain and simple, how the written word can be transportive in a way that really is unmatched.

I discovered Graham Greene in sixth grade, reading in the British Council Library (my family was living in Jerusalem that year), and he’s been one of my favorite authors ever since. I don’t think that first book I read, Brighton Rock, is necessarily his best – I think personally the Heart of the Matter or End of the Affair would take that honor – but nonetheless I’ll always have a special fondness for Brighton Rock. It taught me so much: how to tell a story, how to play hope and despair and different emotions against each other to achieve narrative and tension, how to utterly master a single setting (in this case, bringing such wonderful menace to a seaside holiday town), and how, in great fiction, a character’s anguished inner turmoil can be every bit as captivating as anything external.

The Maltese Falcon is still probably my favorite detective novel of all time, although Trouble is My Business is right up there. But I think that Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, which I’ve read about a half-dozen times starting as a boy, opened my eyes to the kind of grand operatic delight that a detective novel could be. The language and narrative skill, the characters and the way he moves them around within San Francisco’s streets, the final, agonizing decision that forces poor Sam Spade to pit his humanness – his empathy, his heart, his desire, everything he wants – against the fundamental of who he is, his nature, as a detective – it’s just a wonderful book. Now, as a writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area and writing in that genre, I still constantly ask myself how Hammett did what he did.

If you’ve noticed, these three books all stem from my youth, and that’s no coincidence – I think in some ways, no matter what I’ve gone on to read, it’s very hard for anything to be as vivid and formative as books read early in life.

2.What author (living or dead) would you most like to have a cup of coffee with and why?

I was named after Saul Bellow, and although my family knew him well when I was a boy, I never had a real conversation with him as an adult, and then he died while I was in college, although by that point I hadn’t seen him for a number of years. Bellow was someone so brilliant – to read one of his novels is to learn, page by page, about an astounding number of things – not just of people, of character and emotion, but pages filled with this kind of dazzling minutia of absorbed knowledge, everything from men’s style and fashion, to philosophy, to music, to linguistics, to botany… I would very much love the chance to have gotten to talk with him one on one, as an adult.

NOTE: As part of our mission to promote authors, the joy of reading, and to better understand the craft of writing, The Book Jam has paired with the The Norwich Bookstore in Norwich, Vermont to present an ongoing series entitled “3 Questions”. In it, we pose three questions to authors with upcoming visits to the bookstore. Their responses are posted on The Book Jam during the days leading up to their engagement. Our hope is that this exchange will offer insight into their work and will encourage readers to attend these special author events and read their books.

We are very excited to present this week’s “3 Questions” with the writer and artist James Sturm. Mr. Sturm is the co-founder of The Center for Cartoon Studies, where he currently teaches. He is also the author of many critically acclaimed graphic novels (and, we are happy to call him a friend).

Mr. Sturm will appear at 4 pm on Thursday, February 14th at The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont to discuss his latest novel Off Season. The book illustrates one couple’s separation during the 2016 Presidential election season. It follows the face-off between US Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the match up of Secretary Clinton and Donald Trump, and the aftermath of the eventual election of President Trump. Originally serialized on Slate, this expanded edition turns Mr. Sturm’s vignettes into a timeless tale of one family and their off season.

1.What three books have helped shape you into the writer you are today, and why?

McDoodle Streetby Mark Alan Stamaty. I came across a book of this self proclaimed “famous comic strip novel” in the early 1980s. Besides being hilarious, I was charmed by its improvisational nature and it opened up new ways for me to approach comics making. I’m thrilled to see this book being reissued this year.

Fritz The Cat by R. Crumb. Full of vivid details, Crumb’s artwork and writing was both slap dash and masterful and, deceptively, made cartooning look like the most obvious course to take.

Mausby Art Spiegelman. I reread this almost every year and continue to learn from it.

2.What author (living or dead) would you most like to have a cup of coffee with and why?

Maybe someone who was known as a grand raconteur like Dorothy Parker? Or someone who witnessed history with such clear eyes like Joseph Roth? Or better yet, how about H.L. Mencken? I bet it would be fun to speak with him about this historical moment. It seems like every quote of his I come across is spot on: “On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

Berlinby friend and colleague Jason Lutes. I read Berlin while it was being serialized in comic book form over the course of 20 years. Look forward to to sitting down with this magnificent, intimidating tome soon.

NOTE: As part of our mission to promote authors, the joy of reading, and to better understand the craft of writing, The Book Jam has paired with the The Norwich Bookstore in Norwich, Vermont to present an ongoing series entitled “3 Questions”. In it, we pose three questions to authors with upcoming visits to the bookstore. Their responses are posted on The Book Jam during the days leading up to their engagement. Our hope is that this exchange will offer insight into their work and will encourage readers to attend these special author events and read their books.

Mr. Colt will appear at 7 pm on Friday, December 14 at the Norwich Bookstore to discuss The Game: Harvard, Yale and America in 1968. The book offers an analysis of the USA during 1968 as seen through the young men who lived it and were changed by it. These men include a Vietnam Vet, two anti-war activists, an NFL prospect who quit in order to devote his time to black altruism, a postal worker’s son, a wealthy WASP, and the actor Tommy Lee Jones. Mr. Colt’s latest book received a starred review from Kirkus – “A richly detailed, engaging story… First-rate reporting and writing that will appeal to gridiron fans and general readers as well.” We think it would make a great holiday gift for the nonfiction readers in your life, and the Bookstore can ask Mr. Colt to personalize it for you if attend or contact them in advance.

This event is free and open to the public, but reservations are recommended as space is limited. Please call 802-649-1114 or email info@norwichbookstore.com to save a seat. Please note this event is on a FRIDAY, not the usual Wednesday night for events at the Norwich Bookstore.

And now, his answers to our three questions. (Our favorite fun fact – Mr. Colt is married to Anne Fadiman. Our favorite part of his answers — his use of baseball lingo to describe the stack of books by his bedside.)

1. What three books have helped shape you into the writer you are today, and why?

The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Of the many books that got me hooked on reading when I was a child, this was my favorite, because it so quickly and completely transported me from the suburbs of Boston to the garrets of London.

2.What author (living or dead) would you most like to have a cup of coffee with and why?

My wife, Anne Fadiman, with whom I am lucky enough to have a cup of coffee—or two—every day. She’s always interesting, always surprising, and makes a mean cold brew. If I had to invite a guest, I’d invite Jack Kerouac, an early literary hero of mine—but only if I could invite the pre-1957 version, before On the Road and all the craziness.

3.What books are currently on your bedside table?

I just tidied up my bedside table, reducing some fifty or sixty books to a more-manageable-but-still-tottering skyline of 24. At the plate, on deck, and in the hole, respectively: All on Fire, Henry Mayer’s biography of William Lloyd Garrison; In the Darkroom, Susan Faludi’s memoir of her father; and Scenes of Clerical Lifeby George Eliot.

NOTE: As part of our mission to promote authors, the joy of reading, and to better understand the craft of writing, The Book Jam has paired with the The Norwich Bookstore in Norwich, Vermont to present an ongoing series entitled “3 Questions”. In it, we pose three questions to authors with upcoming visits to the bookstore. Their responses are posted on The Book Jam during the days leading up to their engagement. Our hope is that this exchange will offer insight into their work and will encourage readers to attend these special author events and read their books.

Ms. Groff’s most recent novel is Florida, of which the critics have said, “Storms, snakes, sinkholes, and secrets: In Lauren Groff’s Florida, the hot sun shines, but a wild darkness lurks. Florida is a “superlative” book” – Boston Globe, “gorgeously weird and limber” – New Yorker,and “brooding, inventive and often moving” – NPR Fresh Air. Ms. Groff lives with her family in Gainesville, Florida, but will be reading on July 19th (with Fairlee resident and author Christopher Wren) as part of The Meetinghouse Readings in Canaan. These readings are held at 7:30 p.m. on four Thursday evenings in July and early August, and are free and open to the public; no reservations needed. Please call 802-649-1114 or email info@norwichbookstore.com with questions and/or to secure your copies of Ms. Groff’s works.

1.What three books have helped shape you into the writer you are today, and why?​Emily Dickinson’s Collected Poems taught me to love poetry and enigma. George Eliot’s Middlemarch​ ​is a book I reread every year to remind myself what wisdom and warmth look like in a novel. Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red taught me that writers should risk everything because the reward ​ can be so thrilling.

2.What author (living or dead) would you most like to have a cup of coffee with and why?
​I’d love to have a cup of coffee with Virginia Woolf to try to understand the brain that could write a book so colossal and world-rearranging as To The Lighthouse.​

3.What books are currently on your bedside table?
​I’m in a renovated barn in Orford, New Hampshire with so little furniture there’s no bedside table. But I’m doing a large project on the largely forgotten writer Nancy Hale and am reading all of her books right now. [Editor’s note: Ms. Hale’s books are unfortunately out of print so you wont find them at the Norwich Bookstore.]

As part of our mission to promote authors, the joy of reading, and to better understand the craft of writing, The Book Jam has paired with the The Norwich Bookstore in Norwich, Vermont to present an ongoing series entitled “3 Questions”. In it, we pose three questions to authors with upcoming visits to the bookstore. Their responses are posted on The Book Jam during the days leading up to their engagement. Our hope is that this exchange will offer insight into their work and will encourage readers to attend these special author events and read their books.

This week’s “3 Questions” features Melanie Finn, author of The Underneath.This novel follows a journalist struggling with the constraints of motherhood. In an effort to disconnect from work and save her marriage, she rents a quaint Vermont farmhouse for the summer. The discovery of a mysterious crawlspace in the rental with unsettling writing etched into the wall, unfolds a plot exploring violence and family.

1.What three books have helped shape you into the writer you are today, and why?

Bruce Chatwin’s Songlines, because of his lean prose and because, when I was 21, he told me in a dream that I should become a writer (seriously!); The Power and The Gloryby Graham Greene because of the torpid physical and emotional atmosphere Greene creates, and his deeply flawed characters; Beatrix Potter’s books, because she’s not afraid to use long words when speaking to children, because of her humor, because her characters are true to themselves, they’re completely authentic.

2.What author (living or dead) would you most like to have a cup of coffee with and why?

This week we feature “3 Questions” with Annelise Orleck, author of We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now.Her latest of many books offers look at globalization as seen through the eyes of workers-activists: small farmers, fast-food servers, retail workers, hotel housekeepers, home-healthcare aides, airport workers, and adjunct professors who are fighting for respect, safety, and a living wage. Professor Orleck is a professor of history at Dartmouth College and the author of five books on politics, immigration, and activism, including Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty. She lives in Vermont.

1.What three books have helped shape you into the writer you are today, and why?

The books/authors that have had the most profound impact on shaping me as a writer offer a mix of brilliant language, history, heart, music, insight into the troubling and wonderful human and flights of imagination that took me away.

2.What author (living or dead) would you most like to have a cup of coffee with and why?

I have had the pleasure of meeting some of my faves, including Bashevis Singer, Toni Cade, and Dorothy Allison. But most of all, I will always cherish the pleasure of hanging out in the Thetford Elementary School yard and at Thetford’s Treasure Island with Grace Paley.

NOTE: As part of our mission to promote authors, the joy of reading, and to better understand the craft of writing and the living of life, we’ve paired with the The Norwich Bookstore in Norwich, Vermont to present an ongoing series entitled “3 Questions”. In it, we pose three questions to authors with upcoming visits to the bookstore or bookstore related venues. Their responses are posted on The Book Jam during the days leading up to their engagement. Our hope is that this exchange will offer insight into their work and will encourage readers to both attend these special author events and read their books.

Cartoon County tells the story of Mr. Murphy’s father — John Cullen Murphy – the illustrator of the wildly popular comic strips Prince Valiant and Big Ben Bolt, and a man who had been trained by Norman Rockwell.Cartoon Countyfocuses on a period of time in the last century when many of the the nation’s top cartoonists and magazine illustrators – including Mr. Murohy’s father – were neighbors in the southwestern corner of Connecticut. This book, through the lens of the author’s relationship with his father, brings the postwar American era and life in the arts alive.

Mr. Murphy will appear at the Norwich Bookstore at 7 pm on Wednesday, January 17th. This Norwich Bookstore event offers an excellent opportunity to learn about this unique place and time in the 20th century. This event is free and open to the public. However, reservations are recommended as space is limited. Please call 802-649-1114 or email info@norwichbookstore.comto save a seat and/or secure your autographed copy of Cartoon County.

1.What three books have helped shape you into the writer and editor you are today, and why?

A Sense of Where You Are, by John McPhee. This was McPhee’s profile of Bill Bradley as a Princeton basketball player, and I read it in college. It made me aware of the possibilities of a certain kind of literary reporting. Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome. A teacher gave me this nineteenth-century romp when I was in seventh grade in Ireland–there was a kind of high-end silliness about it that has offered a reminder ever since not to take yourself too seriously. Big Story, by Peter Braestrup. Peter was a mentor, and this book was his account of how the press reported the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. It was influential because the account offers many cautionary tales; because it demonstrated that a journalist could do scholarly work; and because I watched him research and write it even as he held a full-time job, showing how that was done.

2.What author (living or dead) would you most like to have a cup of coffee with and why?

Maybe William James. From what I can tell just from his writing–I’ve never read a biography, and should–he seems to have combined an omnidirectional mind and a genial disposition. And for someone who was at his peak around the turn of the last century, he comes across as someone whom you could bump into tomorrow and think you were meeting a contemporary. You would never think that about his novelist brother.

3.What books are currently on your bedside table?

Munich, by Robert Harris. I’m a big Robert Harris fan, and would especially recommend his Rome trilogy, built around Cicero. (Also Pompeii–the opening scene is a classic.) Dinner at the Center of the Earth, by Nathan Englander. I’ve loved Englander’s work ever since reading the early stories of his that we published in The Atlantic. And Grant, by Ron Chernow. Anything by Chernow is worthwhile. Although Hamilton has gotten the most attention–for obvious reasons–I was captivated by his biographies of Rockefeller and Washington.

NOTE: As part of our mission to promote authors, the joy of reading, and to better understand the craft of writing and the living of life, we’ve paired with the The Norwich Bookstore in Norwich, Vermont to present an ongoing series entitled “3 Questions”. In it, we pose three questions to authors with upcoming visits to the bookstore or bookstore related venues. Their responses are posted on The Book Jam during the days leading up to their engagement. Our hope is that this exchange will offer insight into their work and will encourage readers to both attend these special author events and read their books.

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 702 other followers

The Book Jam is…

The view from a small town in Vermont onto the wide world of books where we put the right book in the right hands at the right time.

Through literature and our unique live events — 1) Pages in the Pub, a program bringing disparate communities together around books and 2) BOOK BUZZ, our literacy program for K-12 schools — the Book Jam creates communities. We provide virtual and physical spaces where people can safely discuss difficult issues. Using books, our programs help educate people about important events in their lives and in the lives of others. We build empathy, an essential aspect of healthy communities through discussions about great literature. We increase literacy. And, we draw attention to the wonderful roles of libraries and independent bookstores throughout the world.

WHO WE ARE…

The Book Jam Lisas are two women passionate about reading and sharing our literary discoveries. While we live in the woods, we can spot a great book, especially with the steady stream of excellent suggestions from the indie booksellers up here in Vermont.

WHAT THIS BLOG DOES FOR YOU…

If you’ve got reader’s block – also known as being in a “book jam” – this blog will help. Through posts organized around specific themes and our live events, we open the world of books to you by highlighting books you didn’t even know you needed. If you have issues you need help exploring, this blog will help. If you need to know there are others in the world who feel as you do, this blog will help. We honestly rest easier knowing that you have the right book on your bedside table each night providing whatever it is you need.

Everything we recommend has been personally read and reviewed by one of us – all the way up here in the Green Mountain State.